


Do These Tacos Taste Funny to You?

by Kira_Dattei



Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [23]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Post-Canon, Sickfic, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Dattei/pseuds/Kira_Dattei
Summary: Some things just don’t heal as quickly and it can be really frustrating.Prompt: Poisoned
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994617
Kudos: 84





	Do These Tacos Taste Funny to You?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a whump writer so I can't promise a huge amount of whump in all of these. I just picked the prompt from each day that actually sparked an idea and ran with it.  
> I'm mostly using these as a way to get a feel for the characters and I simply love the relationships given in canon and wanted to explore them.  
> Joe is the lucky whumpee for most of these because I just love him.
> 
> These are all going to be one-shots and they are as connected as you want them to be so you’re good to just read one and not worry about missing anything.

Nicky knocked on the bathroom door a few times and waited for Joe to unlock it so he could go in. He’d been surprised that Joe had even locked the door, especially as he’d rushed to the bathroom so he didn’t give anyone a mess to clean up.

Though his love did have a tendency toward not liking anyone seeing him in moments of pain. It didn’t matter that their pain mostly didn’t last long, they still experienced it and there was some part of them all that just never got accustomed to pain.

And then there were the few things that actually took time for their bodies to heal from. Dismemberment unsurprisingly took a very long time. Drugs tended to affect them strangely, the affects only prevalent to the point where they could feel them for maybe a few minutes but then they felt different for hours, like there was still something there but without the damaging effects, it was left alone by this power that made them recover. Poisoning was easily among the most uncomfortable, all of them that had been poisoned had agreed.

Joe was being reminded of why at that moment.

Because of how many different ways poison could affect the body, it could easily take a few hours to be worked out of the system, the quickest way being vomiting. Of course that mostly worked for poisons that were ingested. Andy had once been injected with a poison that her body essentially burned off through a fever over the course of a day. That had been the most recent and unpleasant of their experiences with poison and they’d been keen to not go through anything like that again for the next hundred years. And poisons that were usually lethal were usually countered by their healing just enough to not kill them but it would still be in their bodies until it was worked out.

Nicky had been growing significantly more concerned with what viral warfare would mean for what they would have to become accustomed to.

Joe still hadn’t unlocked the door so Nicky knocked again, this time following it up. “Joe, would you let me in, please?”

He heard some shuffling on the other side of the door before there was a soft click followed by more shuffling.

Nicky eased the door open slowly, making sure he didn’t accidentally open the door into Joe and just make him feel worse. But the door didn’t run into anything and once the door was open about halfway, Nicky could see Joe’s feet from where he was sitting in front of the toilet. Nicky opened the door the rest of the way and felt immediate sympathy for Joe.

The man was curled up against the wall across from the toilet, a layer of sweat covering his skin, his skin itself a few shades paler than usual, and his arms wrapped tight around his stomach.

Nicky stepped inside and closed the door behind him, then kneeled at Joe’s side and draped the blanket he’d brought with him over his love’s body, placing a brief kiss against damp hair.

“When was the last time one of us went to medical school? We must be due for a refresher and to catch up on modern practices,” Joe groaned out.

Nicky placed his hands at Joe’s shoulders, applying pressure against them and up his neck in a soothing massage. “I believe just before the second world war. I suppose there has been a lot of advances in medical science in that time.” Not to mention Andy’s lost immortality meaning it would be in her best interest for them to know how best to treat her when an injury did eventually happen. “Why?”

“Maybe this time someone will know enough to give me a suitable answer as to why we have to let contaminants to our bodies run their course rather than them being healed like any other injury. I have yet to hear something satisfactory.”

“I don’t know if you can blame that all on them. It’s not as though you can plainly ask your question. And you have a tendency to slip into the wrong decade for languages too easily.” Because Joe learned new languages faster than the rest of them but had more difficulty keeping them separate. He had a habit that most of them considered bad of slipping between languages or even dialects because he preferred the sound of one word to another. When he truly got rambling and wasn’t paying attention, even Nicky could lose track of what his love was saying and he was the one who knew the closest number of languages besides Joe, learning for the sake of keeping up with Joe’s amusements even though he wasn’t as skilled of a linguist.

“It’s not my fault languages can change completely between times we visit certain places.”

“No, it is not,” Nicky placated as he felt Joe’s shoulders tensing. He anticipated the meaning and moved to the side just before Joe’s face paled and he rushed forward toward the toilet and began vomiting.

Nicky slid forward enough to rub his hand along Joe’s back soothingly until Joe was only dry heaving, then he stood and grabbed a washcloth to dampen it with cool water and placed it on the back of Joe’s neck. Another bout of dry heaving and then Joe went lax, leaning to the side toward Nicky, who easily took his weight and wrapped his arm around Joe’s back at his waist.

“Is that the last for now?” he asked, not wanting to move Joe away only for him to move right back toward the toilet.

“I can’t tell. Perhaps. There is longer between so I believe it’s almost all out of my body.”

“That’s good. You’ve been at it for nearly four hours now.”

One of Joe’s hands rested over Nicky’s on his waist while the other came down on Nicky’s thigh, there being enough pressure for Nicky to know his love was attempting to support some of his own weight instead of merely allowing Nicky to hold him upright.

“You stayed out for longer than usual,” Joe noted and Nicky gave a slight smile.

“Andy and I decided to take Nile into town. We didn’t think either of you would want her to listen to this.”

“Was she told?”

“Not yet.”

Joe had been doing reconnaissance with Nicky and they had separated for the sake of speed. Joe had been spotted and cornered and he’d decided not to fight back too much for the sake of not exposing them and putting those they were investigating on alert. But instead of beating him up or going for any simple kill, they had pulled out some sort of vial and forced him to drink whatever was inside before leaving him.

It had only been for the sake of getting Joe back to the safe house that had kept Nicky from destroying those who had attacked his love.

They would pay tomorrow when they infiltrated the base they’d been reconning and took out the men and their entire operation.

But when they’d gotten back to the safe house, Nile and Andy had been in the back training and Nicky had been able to escort Joe to their bedroom and then caught Nile and Andy before they came back inside and took them out to a few nearby shops.

Nile definitely suspected that something was strange but he’d tell her once Joe was recovered and there wasn’t anything for Nile to actually worry over. After all, her and Joe had become close very quickly and she had a tendency towards acts of kindness for showing her concern.

Joe would only accept that easily from Nicky when enduring discomfort as he was now.

“We should probably make sure we tell her about this sort of thing before she actually has to deal with it. You know Andy believes very strongly in learning through experience and we were simply lucky that we’d experienced much before we met her.”

That was true. It had taken quite a few years after Booker had joined them that Joe and Nicky had begun explaining particulars they’d learned of their immortality because Andy simply hadn’t yet.

That was why Booker knew how they healed from being beheaded while never having experienced it for himself.

“Yes, we will need to begin having those conversations with her,” Nicky agreed. “She will likely be ready for that rather soon.” Nicky had been waiting for her to not look so…hurt in watching them heal while others didn’t. She was progressing but not quite there yet.

They’d made mistakes with Booker that Nicky was determined wouldn’t be repeated with Nile even as there was no way of knowing what had been a mistake.

Nicky kept his hold on Joe even as he started using his free hand to comb through Joe’s curly hair, hoping to continue to offer whatever comfort he could manage as he couldn’t make Joe be finished feeling ill. And Joe did gradually relax, shudders only sporadically shaking through his body. They remained there for about another ten minutes before the next wave of nausea hit Joe and he was again vomiting and dry heaving.

This was the cycle for another hour before Joe at last declared that he could feel the difference, that his body was now recovering and it had all gotten out of him. Nicky gave him a relieved kiss to the temple before helping him to his feet and to the sink to brush his teeth. He grumbled absently through the process even as he declared in four languages his gratitude for the accelerated healing meaning his throat wasn’t sore from all the vomiting. Nicky knew most of the complaining was because he still wasn’t feeling completely better and was frustrated. It would pass once Joe got some sleep and was able to put the unpleasantness of the day behind him.

With that in mind, Nicky opened the door and waited for Joe to walk past him. He moved sluggishly, his footsteps heavy as they rarely were, and headed toward the bed, dropping onto it with a dull thud. Nicky grabbed some loose clothes for Joe to sleep in and tossed them onto the bed next to Joe’s head for him to get changed as his own leisure while he returned to the bathroom to make sure it was clean, turning on the fan so it would air out a little.

When he returned to the bedroom, Joe was sitting on the edge of the bed pulling his shirt off, his pants already changed and he looked like he was already half-asleep. He dropped his shirt to the floor next to his feet and looked to the shirt sitting on the bed next to him before he huffed and twisted around to lay down, adjusting his head up to the pillow with lazy maneuvers until he could curl on his side as he usually slept. It was a show of how tired he was that he was on the side of the bed closest to the door, Nicky’s side.

Nicky would likely need to wake him up to move him over to the other side of the bed or Nicky wouldn’t be able to sleep. He always had trouble relaxing when he couldn’t be in his usual protective position between Joe and the room’s point of entry and knowing Joe wasn’t feeling well would greatly exacerbate that.

For now, he wasn’t anywhere near ready to fall asleep and he’d go back out to see about dinner for Nile and Andy before returning to Joe for the night. Andy would appreciate seeing him as it meant Joe was recovered enough to rest and Nicky to feel comfortable leaving him again even if just for less than an hour.

He did sit on the bed behind Joe’s back, there being just enough room for him to sit and not be falling off. He again brought a hand to Joe’s neck and massaged the tense muscles there, feeling as his love relaxed into sleep gradually.

Nicky was more at ease now, knowing Joe was better and it would be as though it never happened by the morning. However, his ease now would pass in the instant they were among those who had been responsible for his love’s suffering this day. Nicky didn't forgive those who caused his love pain.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and hope you liked it.  
> I'm absolutely gleeful at the reception these are getting and thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments. I appreciate every single one so much! Thank you for the support!


End file.
